Italy’s prime minister heads to Kyiv

ROME: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was heading to Kyiv on Tuesday for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, native media reported.

Meloni, who took workplace in October, has repeatedly expressed a need to go to Ukraine to exhibit her authorities’s assist following Russia’s invasion nearly precisely one yr in the past.

NATO member Italy has supplied money and weapons to assist Ukraine, and earlier this month agreed to ship cellular surface-to-air missile techniques that it has collectively developed with France.

“We’ve supplied monetary, navy, humanitarian and civilian assist” to Kyiv “and Ukraine can definitely rely on Italy as a result of we’ve proven because the begin… that we had been right here (for Kyiv) and we’ll proceed to be right here,” Meloni mentioned at a press convention in Warsaw on Monday.

Meloni, who leads the far-right Brothers of Italy celebration, has additionally distanced herself from the extra pro-Russian companions in her governing coalition.

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Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, chief of the far-right League celebration, has up to now spoken admiringly of Vladimir Putin and even worn a T-shirt bearing the Russian president’s face.

In the meantime former premier Silvio Berlusconi, whose Forza Italia celebration is the junior companion within the coalition, has sought to shift blame for the struggle away from Moscow, most not too long ago earlier this week when he criticised Zelensky.

Meloni’s workplace responded by emphasising its “agency and dedicated” assist for Ukraine.